CHIMACUM TIM (or CHIMACUM TIMACUM), the ferry worker and surfer who seems to believe this site is somehow important, or viral… oh, yeah, Tim is, or has been, viral himself (get well, Tim, and don’t give whatever it is to me- strict orders from TRISH not to get too close- “Oh, no; I don’t, it’s mostly text harassment.” “Good.”), has been telling me for a while that it is difficult-if-not-impossible to read my manuscript broken up into still-oversized chunks. “Why don’t you just print it up?” “Because it’s still not done.” “Why don’t you finish it, man?” “Been trying, man.”

It just might be close enough on the many-ist edit, to stop posting. NO, but this week, different thing.

BUT FIRST, Nickname of the week: “Bubble B” for guy who shows up with a blowup SUP. Credit, until proven otherwise, goes to KEITH DARROCK. “Why not Bubble Boy, Keith?” “Bubble B is better.” “You know, if he keeps showing up, it’ll go to Kevin.”

HIPSTER/KOOK of the week: RALPH, according to some, more gregarious than the ultra-gregarious ADAM WIPEOUT JAMES (which, no offense meant, I dispute), took this photo somewhere northwest of Sequim. Yes, Ralph is, inarguably, cool in his own right; not trying to start an argument in the shellfish/surf subset, just… I’ve been saying Adam is the most outgoing dude I’ve come across for a long time, and Ralph, who everyone seems to know, has enough supporters. Again, not purposefully stirring any pot here.

COOL RIG, has a few dents.

HERE’S a piece I wrote recently: But first… I hit the wrong key and got this (below). I can’t seem to delete it or do anything else with it. Keyboard errors. Shit!

LAUNDROMAT STORIES- All Children Should Sing

The hand-drawn sign, white chalk on light gray cardboard, taped to the inside of the driver’s side back window of the gray compact SUV read, “Milk for Sale- LOCAL.” The sign on the passenger side mentioned goat milk. A decal on the back window called for supporting local milk producers; and there was, of course, a “Got Milk” sticker and the locally ubiquitous Chicken logo from the Chimacum Farm Stand. 

I had not allowed myself enough time to casually finish painting the trim and fascia on three sides of the Laundromat before I would have to quit because of rain or darkness, or both; both so common, yet surprising, in the early days of November.

So, I was hustling, painting, moving the ladder, jumping up to get another six feet coated, drop down. I wasn’t taking time to really observe the vehicles parked just out of splatter range, or the people in them.

Not true. I did give several sideways glances to the guy in the passenger side of a pickup, window rolled down to allow his cigarette smoke to roll out. He was clutching an uncovered beer can. I may have looked too long when he yelled something to a woman, pulled forward by an oversized dog, as she passed between me and the truck.

He might have been saying something to me. No, he was saying something that had to have been rude; quick, guttural, two syllables smashed into one bitter contraction, to the woman. I’m a working man, working; no way another blue-collar dude would say something demeaning to me, unless we know each other. We don’t.

To drop such a phrase to the woman walking the dog, doing the laundry… maybe she forgives him.

I had to go inside the laundromat to retrieve something to prop the side door open, hopefully preventing customers from brushing against the wet paint on the frame. A ‘Wet Floor’ tripod sign worked perfectly. That is when I saw the amazingly large stacks of clothing off to one side. Obviously, the dirty clothes; there was plenty of counter space for clean clothes. Four loads would be my guess, and a young man with a reddish beard and a greenish hat squatting among them. Goat farmer was my guess; young, hip farmer, sorting whites and colored, a pile for work clothes, hopefully pre-hosed.

Among the piles was an overly padded combo baby carrier/car seat, with a baby inside; awake, looking up into the lights. A young woman, black hair and top and pants and shoes, came over and picked up the baby. Both hands. She tweaked her wrist to give some change to her man, then pushed her hand out a bit farther to point to a particular pile. “Too many,” she may have said; “Two loads.”

Outside again, the oversized dog was in the front seat of the pickup. In the middle. Watching me. The man was smoking, again, beer in the hand around the dog’s neck, also, I believed, looking at me. The woman had used the front door. I moved the ladder and allowed her room to place her two large trash bags of laundry in the bed of the truck.

She said, “Looks nice… The paint.” I would have said something if the man hadn’t grunted, smoke forcibly blown out his window. I shouldn’t have looked, even for the half second it took to move past the hood of the truck, past him and the dog. I smiled at the dog, still staring at me, and gave the woman the same smile, probably, and a ‘thank you’ nod when I looked back at her.

It was truly dark when I went back inside to thank the woman who seemed to run the place, to give her the key to the doors to the room with the water heaters. Painted, gaskets reinstalled, touch up paint put inside, locked.

Five wash machines in a row of six were running. The young man in the green hat was leaning against the ‘out of order’ one, the empty baby carrier on top of it. His woman was carrying their baby, close, both hands, looping around the wash machines and the dryers, past the people folding and sorting, past the people waiting, looking at their phones. She was singing something soft and low, something, a lullaby only her baby could hear over the spinning, whirring machine noise.

All good mothers sing to their children.

All children should sing.

AS ALWAYS, please respect copyrights for all original material on realsurfers.net. AND, AS ALWAYS, GOOD LUCK in finding the waves of your dreams. OH, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!